Courts: A Text/Reader

Craig Hemmens holds a J.D. from North Carolina Central University School of Law and a Ph.D. in Criminal Justice from Sam Houston State University. He is Department Head and Professor in the Department of Criminology & Criminal Justice at Missouri State University. In addition to being the series editor for SAGE's Text/Reader series in Criminology/Criminal Justice, Professor Hemmens has published several books, including Law, Justice and Society (Oxford University Press, (c)2009), Legal Guide for Police (Anderson, A(c)2011) and an Introduction to Criminal Evidence (Oxford University Press, A(c)2009). He has been nominated for several teaching awards, and is currently serving as the first Vice President of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences.

Cassia Spohn received her PhD in political science from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1978. Prior to joining the faculty at Arizona State University, she was the Kayser Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, where she served as Director of Graduate Studies for 12 years and as Department Chair for one year. Dr. Spohn is the author of How Do Judges Decide? Second Edition (SAGE, (c)2009), and co-author of Criminal Courts (SAGE, A(c)2010). She also is co-author of two books: The Color of Justice: Race, Ethnicity, and Crime in America (Cengage, A(c)2007) and Rape Law Reform: A Grassroots Movement and Its Impact (Springer, A(c)1992). She has published more than 75 articles on topics such as the effects of race/ethnicity and gender on sentencing decisions, sentencing of drug offenders, prosecutors' charging decisions in sexual assault cases, and the deterrent effect of imprisonment. She is currently working on a project investigating case attrition and case clearances in sexual assaults reported to the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department.